We’ve spent a few days creating a fresh grazing area for the pigs behind the existing pens. That’s involved putting in a new gateway from the boar pen into the main field, enclosing a 40m by 40m section of the field with semi-permanent fencing and closing off a large part of the pig pen to regenerate.
As the ground has proved to be quite soft around the new gateway (look at the post to the left), the new gatepost has been boxed in with a wire windlass transferring the forced of the strained fence back to the base of the post.
Graham and Delilah, two of our pedigree Berkshire pigs, head out onto the new grazing for the first time.
But it all proved too much for the pigs. After a short spelling of nosing at the fresh turf, they decided to lie down and go to sleep instead.
As we don’t have the case for extra temporary electric fencing, we’ve been improvising by using spare or salvaged permanent fittings. 2.5mm high-tensile wire and bailing twine to build our temporary fences.
We keep the wire as long as possible - for future reuse- by looping it up and down the posts, securing the end of the wire to the same post as the in-line strainer. Bailing twine works a treat for this sort of job.
The first image did not come out on the blog. The remainder are very clear mate.
We too have been fiddling with electric fencing, to keep dingos secure in their yards; they are the “diggingest” animals around.
That soil looks nice and rich too.
The photos all look fine in Safari and Firefox, but this is a glitch that does occur from time to time with WordPress. I’ll reload the photos and see what happens.
The soil is fairly good by Aussie standards, but it’s still low in organic matter and trace minerals. It’s also very acidic.
We’re gradually incorporating mucked in the soil, as well as digging in green manure. I reckon that after about eight to 10 years we’ll have good soil!